Hi,

The Inka Trail and Machu Picchu was a truly fantastic experience, the trail was spectacular and a real adventure, sometimes when we least expected it. This was a personal challenge for us but we overcame it and at times when we expected it to be really hard we took it in our stride and did oursleves proud. At other times we found it difficult but it was determination that kept us going.
Machu Picchu itself was more than we expected. The postcard view from the trail at sunrise was spectacular as we had hoped for but the views from inside the ruins themselves were beyond our expectations.
We had a great group of people to do the treck with. Cheers and happy travels to you all and thanks for making this not just a great treck but a great experience too.

Congratulations ! It all looks fantastic. We were hearing stories about really bad weather and were getting ready to send food parcels. You both look really well on the photos. Will send more news and possibly photos when the Jeavons and Hene families meeting up in Nice at the end of this week. Take care. All our luv. Mom& Dad .

Hi guys, looks like you had a fantastic time, really glad it went well. Hope you have had a well deserved rest. I've finally managed to get Mitchs website kind of sorted so if you fancy having a look at the France piccies and Jun/ Jul piccies (current to yesterday) the website is: http://www.thomi.smugmug.com. Each gallery is password protected but has the same password for each one, mitchell. Let me know what you think. I'm having probs connecting remote to our email address, although Mark is able to, so if you need to contact me for any reason try my hotmail acct: [email protected]. Mark is really looking forward to seeing you both, just wish Mitchy and I could be there too to see you. Do you know yet when you're due to get to Anchorage? Jenny did you ever manage to find Mitch's car toy? Take Care Thomi

Wow it looks amazing and well done. I notice you weren't carrying your rucksacks on the trail - a VERY good call by the looks of things. Look forward to reading all the tales. Tina x

Well done! Can't wait to hear about it! Can't wait till we get round to it!
Mum and Dad westby

Hola

We survived!
Just got back from the Inka trail this morning.......shattered
It was fabulous, hard work and spectacular and worth it.
We´ll put the photos on today then do the journal over the next couple of days.
Claire & Ian

Hola,
Cheers for the messages.....GWAR TWINS! I´ve sent bex an email. Cool about your plans for travelling abi, we´re supposed to be in Japan then India & Nepal I think when you`re over there but you never know we may fall in love with the south pacific!.
Wish we could hear Mitchy learning new words, hope you guys have a nice time in Torquay, germ free, miss you too. Looks like we´ll meet up with Mark, he´s mailed us his address, hope he doesnt mind bringing back some stuff fpr us, bit cheeky but the RAF makes a reliable postal service heh!
Cheers for the photos of Cara, sis. Especially enjoying her jungle gym. It sounds like you guys have itchy feet too. Thats quite a nice little round the world trip you´ve got planned. All on business of course.
WestbyMum&Dad, hope you had fun in paris, we set off tomorrow on Machu Pichu eek!
Catherine & Jim, cheers for the messages, sorry for the delayed response, we seem to spend 3hrs at a time in internet cafe´s & get fed up by the time we get to write to people, glad the house is coming along, look forward to seeing it all finished when we get back....hope all our furniture isnt becoming a pain.
Carol & John cheers for the message too, hope the jewelery business is coming along......been buying quite a bit here, we´re tempted to do the same ourself.
Steve and Bernie. Pass on our congratulations to Lisa. We´ll be late back to Sheffield but tell her we´ll drop by in a years time. Cheers for the messages.

We now have two sets of tickets from Cusco to Lima to get us to there in time to catch our international flight to Alaska. It´s a right shambles here at the moment. Like most other people we had a tickets with Aero Continente to get to Lima but we´ve just found out that they´ve been grounded due to some drug smuggling acusations. we heard a rumor yesterday that the owner had been arrested but now it seems that they have had to ditch their security company and now can´t fly without one. We couldn´t wait for them to sort themselves out so we´ve paid for flights with someone else. In typical fashion the police turned up and just closed the Aero office with no information.

Better go, off for our SAS travel briefing for the inka trail....v early tomorrow. We´ll write lots when we get back in about 5 days time, westbymum&Dad and JeavonsMum&Dad we´re going to try and get to call you when we get back but will mail first.

Wew´re both attempting to write this with a hangover. We haven´t really touched booze since france but we discovered happy hour at Norton Rats last night and some pretty rough gin & tonics and pisco &coke´s. Good preparation for a treck.

Take Care everybody

Claire & Ian
xx

Hiya, hope you both are well and the weather has warmed up a bit. Mark is now on his way to Alaska. He is there until Sat 31 July, so if you guys make it to Anchorage before then I will let you know where he's staying and a contact no etc.. He would love to see you. Mitchy, Homey and I have relocated back down to Torquay for a few weeks and we are all lurgy free at the mo- which is nice!!! Mitchy is coming on leaps and bounds - literally and is learning new words all the time. His favourite at the moment are NO, sit down and car. He also seems to have forgotten how to vvvvvhhhhh, and now every animal goes BAAAAAA. I'm still trying to get his website sorted, but now we are somewhere with a decent internet connection I should be able to get it sorted. Miss you loads Thomi xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wow...looks wicked and u both are looking reight appy... all is well this end
guess what? you probably already know .... bex is pregnant with twins .... she is 15 weeks due january but prob will be dec as there are 2222222222 ginger monkeys!!!!! she was pegnant on her wedding day!= slapper!
we have booked our flights .... 11th jan we go to LA av a week there then arrive in NZ for 2 months then a month in OZ(12TH MARCH TILL 12TH APRIL)then back to NZ.....blood seed am reight excited ... plse let it fit in with ye plans ...would be brilliant to see ye somewhere warm.........scotish summer bloodclart freeeeezzzing !!!!
look after each other xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx abs ,nick and mi mo xxxx

trip sounds brill. i am very impressed that ian has overcome his spider fear. You got bit because you have sweet westby vlood, im also like that. Dont wear any perfume whatsoever ! eat lots of garlic. Have you got witch hazel for the bites ?

Its amazing you saw all those animals absolutely brill. We are off to corfu now, not as exciting but very cheap and not at work for two weeks which is good enough. Email you when we get back
Lots of love

ps sofa in window put back in. Massive sofa, both can lie down on it which is great. Gerri sad that we are abandoning her. hope steves mum remembers. pps Thomi I think Mitch needs some time in quarantine (~:

To Uncle Ian & Aunty Claire. Mom says sorry for the lack of news but she promises to send an email and some piccies soon. I'm now 5 months old. I have four favourite pastimes: (1) eating anything put in front of me, (2) blowing raspberries, (3) rolling from my back on to my tummy (and then crying cos I'm stuck), and (4) sleeping from 7pm to 7am with no breaks. For some reason mom and dad are particularly pleased with the last one! love baby Cara

We've just looked at all the jungle photos and journals - sounds fantastic and you seem to be happy despite Calire's amazing ability to attract biting/stinging insects - I can't talk, got loads of bee stings today as I took off 70kg of acacia honey, still that's my fault I suppose ... Azzie reckons it all looks a bit too much like hard work walking in the jungle, 30mins round Sully is his maximum but he's still being a happy old 14 yr old dog - all the very best from us - love Max and Jenny